I have always enjoyed observing newts and recall the first time that I saw one on an upper tributary of Austin creek in Sonoma County. The fact that it was bicolor intrigued me and I ran home to tell my mother of my sighting and wondering what it was.Later during my college years I was introduced to a very interesting book "Of Scientist and Salamanders" by Victor Twitty, Professor of Biology at Stanford University who spent a lifetime of experimental studies on Salamanders.